Melina Mara/Washington Post
FBI agents around the country are working to unravel the various motives, relationships, goals and actions of the hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Some inside the bureau have described the Capitol riot investigation as their biggest case since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a top priority of the agents’ work is to determine the extent to which that violence and chaos was preplanned and coordinated…
An indictment Friday night charged a member of the Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzola, 43, of Rochester, N.Y., with conspiracy, saying his actions showed “planning, determination, and coordination.” Another alleged member of the Proud Boys, William Pepe, 31, of Beacon, N.Y., also was charged with conspiracy.
One of the comments cited in the FBI memo declared Trump supporters should go to Washington and get “violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.”
RTFA. Classic coordination for demonstrations is always fertile ground for folks who prefer violence over public support for whatever political position. Poisonally, I think they need to have their heads examined if they believe they can rollout a Banana Republic coup in a nation with inertia and ennui designed into the genetics of political processes.
Preferably, the exams should be conducted by a prison doctor.
By Nov. 12, former President Donald Trump’s team of election lawyers knew he had lost his re-election bid, that despite Trump’s tweets and public comments, “there was no substantial evidence of election fraud, and there were nowhere near enough ‘irregularities’ to reverse the outcome in the courts,” The New York Times reports. But their protestations just made Trump turn to allies telling him what he wanted to hear, so Nov. 12 was also the day “Trump’s flimsy, long-shot legal effort to reverse his loss turned into something else entirely — an extralegal campaign to subvert the election, rooted in a lie so convincing to some of his most devoted followers that it made the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable.” https://theweek.com/speedreads/964241/white-house-allies-secretly-wrote-texas-lawsuit-asking-supreme-court-overturn-bidens-win
“Seditionaries: FBI net closes on Maga mob that stormed the Capitol” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/06/us-capitol-insurrection-fbi-investigation
“Before Capitol Riot, Republican Lawmakers Fanned the Flames : A “1776 moment”: Several of the president’s closest allies in Congress used bellicose language to urge their supporters to attend the Jan. 6 rally that turned into a deadly riot.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/politics/republicans-capitol-riot.html
“Following The Money Behind The Capitol Insurrection” https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/02/05/following-the-money-of-the-capitol-insurrection
“The Rich Mothers of the Insurrection : Pro-Trump women’s groups were the Trojan horse of the deadly Capitol riot.” https://newrepublic.com/article/161208/trump-women-capitol-riot-funding
“Here is the smoking gun evidence to back impeachment of Donald Trump” https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/537765-here-is-the-smoking-gun-evidence-to-back-impeachment-of-donald-trump
Former aides to Donald Trump told CNN that Trump enjoyed watching his supporters assault the US Capitol in the final days of his presidency. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-was-loving-watching-the-capitol-mob-white-house-official-2021-2
As the violence unfolded last month, Republicans and Democrats alike pleaded with Trump to intervene — to call on his supporters to stop. For hours, however, he remained largely silent, ensconced at the White House and, reports indicate, consuming cable news.
“A congressional oversight committee is investigating whether Parler has financial ties to Russian entities, citing reports that the right-wing social network “allowed Russian disinformation to flourish” before the election and hosted calls for violence before a Trump-incited mob stormed the Capitol on January 6. The committee’s chairwoman sent a letter to Parler COO Jeffrey Wernick today, demanding documents on Parler’s ownership, potential ties to Russian individuals or entities, and reported negotiations between Parler and the Trump Organization.” https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/parlers-ownership-offer-to-trump-and-possible-russian-ties-probed-by-congress/
“Parler CEO John Matze has been fired just weeks after the conservative social network went dark.
Matze, who confirmed his firing on LinkedIn, sent a note to Parler employees announcing that the board, led by prominent conservative donor Rebekah Mercer, had terminated him on Jan. 29.
The move comes just three weeks after Parler was taken offline by Amazon Web Services, along with Google, and Apple’s app stores, for failing to moderate violent content and hate speech amid the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6. Trump supporters had flocked to the service in the run up to the presidential election, angry at other social networks for what they described as censoring of conservative voices.” (Fortune Feb 3, 2021) https://fortune.com/2021/02/03/parler-ceo-fired-john-matze-board-conservative-social-media/
Pelosi announces plans for ‘9/11-type commission’ to investigate Capitol attack https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/15/politics/pelosi-capitol-attack-commission/index.html
A commission of this nature would be established by a statute, passed by both chambers and signed into law by the President. The commission members would not be elected leaders and would be outside the government.
(2/15/21): The Huffington Post has a running tally with profiles of the 57 Republican lawmakers and officials who have been identified as attendees of the protests that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/57-gop-officials-at-capitol-insurrection_n_6026e5e2c5b6f88289fb90a6?section=politics&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016
“Many have since sought to avoid responsibility for their part in it all. Of the 57 GOP officials identified as being at the rally, afterward at least 20 pushed the false conspiracy theory that ‘antifa,’ or leftist anti-fascists, actually started the violence — a claim that’s been rendered increasingly absurd with the arrests of about 200 Trump supporters since Jan. 6.”
(2/15/21): “New police radio dispatches and security footage from the January 6 US Capitol riot paint an even sharper picture of how the insurrectionists at times showed little fear of the police as they launched a large and coordinated attack,” https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/15/politics/video-dispatches-capitol-riots/index.html
The FBI has arrested a former State Department aide from the administration of former President Donald Trump in connection with the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol, according to US media. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/5/trump-appointee-arrested-in-connection-with-capitol-riot-reports
“Officers maced, trampled: Docs expose depth of Jan. 6 chaos” https://apnews.com/article/docs-expose-depth-january-6-capitol-siege-chaos-fd3204574c11e453be8fb4e3c81258c3